


and other iconic moments

by noellesthings



Category: That '70s Show, The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Bender Lights his Shoe on Fire, Canon Divergence, Established Friendship, F/M, Referenced Drug Use, Stealing a car, alternatively titled: Donna reads a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:02:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noellesthings/pseuds/noellesthings
Summary: Bender pulls out an ice cream sandwich, and flings it at her head.
Relationships: Donna Pinciotti/John Bender
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	and other iconic moments

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my files for so long, and after several long, fatigue-inducing battles with my brain I decided to post it.
> 
> Also yes, I am aware that one is from the 80s and the other clearly isn’t. I’ve decided to deal with this problem by not addressing it and instead making random references to 70s novels throughout the fic.

-

She’s reading _Ms. Magazine_ when the screen door to the basement swings open with a shuddering bang - so sharp it rattles the mesh out of its frame - and Bender walks in.

Donna’s surprise outweighs her elation. “Where the _Hell_ were you?” She half-shouts, mouth agape and swiveling to stare at him, and Bender just shrugs, as if he hasn’t just resurfaced after being away for _eight months_ , and says, “Went for an ice cream.” He walks over to Eric’s cooler and instantly starts rifling through it.

“No, seriously,” Donna drops her magazine and sits up on her knees to get a better look at him behind the couch. Besides a new scar on his thumb, not much has changed. “Where were you?” 

Sometimes Bender answers her honestly and sometimes he doesn’t, and when Bender pulls out an ice cream sandwich and flings it at her head, Donna sighs. Not honestly, then.

Instead of prodding further, Donna picks at the plastic ice cream wrapper with one hand. “Thanks.” 

Bender, never one for being polite, simply sits on the edge of the couch, large boots planted into the cushions. He doesn’t care that mud covers three-quarters of his boots and is now rubbing on the fabric.

“How’d you even know I was here?” Donna says between bites. It was damn good ice cream. “This is Eric’s basement.”

“Clark.” Bender replies, as if it was obvious. Donna has never met this Clark, but she thinks he might be on the wrestling team. In one smooth motion, Bender jumps off the edge of the couch, landing beside Donna with a thump, one of his many coats narrowly brushing against her hair.

“So.” He says in the ensuing silence, as Donna turns to him, “What have _you_ been doing while I was gone, I wonder. Studying?” Bender peers exaggeratedly at her magazine, and raises an eyebrow. “ _Ms. Magazine_.” He reads. “My favorite.”

“Shut up.” Donna laughs, and taps him on the knee instead of her usual shoulder-shove, because she’s hit Bender on the arm once and learned it was a very bad thing to do. “I haven’t only been reading. I’ve been hanging out with my friends.”

Bender stops reading the magazine, and turns to her. “You have _friends_?”

“I’m very popular.” Donna informs him, flipping the page.

“I’d _love_ to meet them.”

-

Introducing Bender to the gang is strange.

He doesn’t leave the basement so the introducing part happens almost accidentally; they all sorta come down and suddenly _see_ him, a stranger lounging on the couch as if he owns the place with his legs thrown in Donna’s lap (she made him take his shoes off) and Donna figures she owes them some sort of explanation, if only to dissuade the judgmental, panicked looks Eric is sending her.

“Everyone, this is Bender, he goes to Sherman High, and he just got back from,” and here Donna pauses, because she still doesn’t know _where_ Bender was this time, or why he left in the first place.

“Prison,” Bender fills in, deadly serious, with an expression that Donna, only after years of practice deciphering him, knows is faux. Micheal squeaks; the silence that follows is awkward and uncomfortable. To be fair, Bender actually looks like he _could_ have been in prison - multiple times - and it’s not like the gang hangs around the hardcore gangster type. The most dangerous person they know is probably Red, so Donna decides the quiet that falls over the room is justifiable.

By the end of it Fez exclaims Bender is what all people from his country refer to as ‘extremely sketchy,’ Micheal’s hiding behind a stack of records and asking if Bender’s gone - _but seriously, is he gone_? - and Jackie pulls her aside to say that Bender’s _totally hot_ , but in a rogue, criminal kind of way.

“He’s gone, Kelso!” Donna calls, after glaring Jackie down. “You can stop hiding.”

“I wasn’t _hiding_ ,” Micheal argues, but it’s difficult to believe as he tentatively pokes his head out, looks around to confirm that Bender is, indeed, gone, and _then_ stands up.

“ _Hooo_ ,” he says, and rubs a hand over his forehead in emphasis. “That was a close one.”

“You, my friend, are a pussy.” Fez states. He, himself, hadn’t hidden from Bender, but he did stand in nervous silence by the door.

Micheal lets out an indignant squeak. “ _What? No._ No- it’s called being _cautious_. I mean, that’s _John Bender_. He’s insane. I saw him beat up a guy just for walking funny.”

“That was you!”

“ _Nuh-uh!_ ”

“Look, guys,” Eric stands up, and waves a hand around the room in a placating motion, “there’s nothing to be scared of.” Eric nods his head twice in a way that means he’s trying to convince himself of something false. “I can take him.”

“There’s no _taking_ anybody. He’s my friend.”

Eric’s face switches from contrived confidence to annoyance. “Donna, how do you even know the guy?”

“Long story,” Donna says, because she realizes this was probably a mistake, and lets them go back to bickering.

-

“Jackie thinks you’re hot.” Donna says once the gang has left. She’s sitting by the steps while Bender shoots hoops in Eric’s driveway.

“Which one’s Jackie?”

Donna rolls her eyes. “Small, high-pitched voice, always talking about herself?”

Bender pauses, considering, and goes right back to shooting hoops. “Nah.”

“You don’t think Jackie’s attractive?”

Bender tosses the ball into a bush. “Too loud. I’d never get her to shut up with that kind of mouth.”

Donna snorts, pleased, and tosses Bender another ball.

-

Somewhere in freshman year Donna goes through a phase of non-stop smoking, and looking back Donna knows it was stupid, jeopardizing her grades for attention, but she doesn’t really regret it becuase for once her parents stopped fighting and started _looking_ at her.

Bender catches her with a cigarette in hand, leaning against the back of the school. She’s trying to act and look casual, propped up against the brick wall, but the cig drags at her lungs and tastes awful. She’s never smoked a cigarette before. Her father once told her it’s not for happy people.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Bender says after a moment, studying her. He’s smirking while doing it, and suddenly Donna was really, really glad Bender was here and not Eric.

“Oh yeah?” Donna challenges.

“Yeah.” 

Bender takes her cigarette with one hand and twists her fingers with the other; he’s right, she _was_ holding it wrong.

“There.” Bender announces a moment later, and plops the cigarette back between her fingers. Donna takes another drag, and, well, it’s easier, _cooler_ , even if it does make her mouth taste of ash.

Bender simply lights his own, and smokes in silence besides her.

-

She gets caught of course, and earns herself three Saturdays in detention along with a letter to her parents. But it’s also three Saturdays spent with Bender _and_ her parents talk to her every night, so Donna can’t honestly bring herself to see it as anything other than a plus.

-

And it _is_ a plus, a rather entertaining one. Donna sits in silence with a group of derelicts, reads ten pages of _The Bell Jar_ , then stops when she reads the same paragraph twice. “What are you doing?”

Bender looks at her. “Isn’t it obvious?” He’s got his leg propped up on the desk, flames licking at the top of his sneaker. It smells of burnt rubber, and he tucks the lighter into one of his many pockets. “Thinking about Dick got boring.”

He puts the fire out with his hand and inspects the burnt part of his shoe. “Why are you smoking, anyway? Need a refill on bad habits?”

Donna shrugs, and tries to act nonchalant. “My parents are fighting,” and Bender grows all tense, the way he normally does when parents are mentioned.

“Well,” he says, throwing his leg down with a thump and twisting sideways in his seat so he’s facing her, “I know a way to get them _really_ mad,” and here he smiles all wide, one eyebrow raised in question.

Donan just laughs, and looks around the classroom. Bender continues smirking at her, and Donna thinks - wildly, suddenly - what it would be like if he threw her on the table and they did _it_ right here and then.

“What’s all that ruckus?” Mr. Vernon barks.

“Nothing, sir.” Bender replies.

Donna goes back to reading.

-

“You’re not really dating that shrimp, are you?”

Donna glares. “His name is _Eric_.” She huffs, crosses her arms over her chest. Bender inspects his sleeves as if they contain a treasure map on them, then the trees around Eric’s porch, demonstrating how little he cares. Donna bites her lip. 

Well. They weren’t _actually_ dating.

There was that first kiss, and then that second kiss, both which she initiated, and since then Eric sorta danced around the issue of _them_ , if there was a them. It’s annoying, frankly, because Donna likes Eric, and-

Well.

She _thinks_ she does.

“That’s not an actual answer.” Bender says perceptively, smirking.

Donna opens up the magazine Bender had stolen from her, and starts impatiently flipping through it. “Shut up.” 

-

There was this one time in tenth grade when Donna came out of the shower and found Bender standing in her room. 

She was wearing a towel and Bender was _standing in her room_ , fully dressed in his many coats and flannels and too-large, too-long jeans. Donna thinks oh, because she knows she _should_ be feeling surprised or angry or throwing a couple books at his head, but can’t quite comprehend that Bender is _here, now_.

Donna’s hand is clenched around her side, and every time she breathes the towel hikes up just a little more on her thighs, tightens around the curve of her breasts, and she can _feel_ Bender staring, tracing her exposed skin.

It’s. Not awkward.

Not even a little bit.

It’s _charged_ , electrifying, Donna is standing at the edge of a cliff and ready to jump.

For once in his life, Bender doesn’t say anything, and she’s not entertaining the idea that he’s speechless when _she’s_ speechless, because Bender always has a million and one things to say and now he’s saying nothing. At all.

Her hair is pushed to the side. Water is running down her neck. Between the fall of one water droplet and the next, time shifts again, and Bender tosses Donna her pyjamas, which she left in a clump on her bed. “I believe these are yours,” he says.

Donna nods. “Yeah.”

And then he rushes out of the room.

-

Donna’s outside the Hub, staring at a couple flyers tagged against the weather-eaten paint when suddenly the VistaCruiser pulls up with a clunk and a chug across the street. It takes Donna a moment to realize who’s sitting in it.

 _“Bender?_ ”

“Yeah?” Bender pokes his head out the rolled-down window, looking entirely unconcerned.

“You _stole_ Eric’s car?” Donna exclaims.

“Who’s _Eric_?”

Donna ignores this. “Does Eric know?”

“Yeah, Pinciotti. Right before I stole the car, I let the dork know I was doing it. Now are you gonna ask stupid questions, or get in?”

The door’s unlocked when Donna opens it.

-

Later, Red spends three hours yelling at them: Eric tries and fails to get a word in, - _I wasn’t even in the car, dad!_ \- Bob says his Donna had nothing to do with this, and Bender just does what he always does in the presence of an adult - stares down and scuffs at the driveway with his shoe.

When Red walks off, Bob informs Donna that he’s grounding her for a week, and Eric just looks miserable.

Bender’s eyes are uneasy when he looks up at Red’s receding back, but other than that he doesn’t move till Red goes inside the house and closes the screen door behind him. He doesn’t apologize for getting Donna grounded, and Donna doesn’t expect him to.

“That was fun.” Bender notes, unwinding now that the adults have disappeared.

“You stole my car.” Eric says.

“I had a good time.” Donna finds herself saying.

“You stole my car.” Eric says again.

“Well, _Eric_ , next time don’t leave the keys inside.”

“But you _stole_ it.”

“So?”

Eric turns to Donna, and points at Bender. “Are you hearing this?”

Donna tucks her hands into her pockets. She doesn’t feel like fighting, or listening to Eric complain, and Eric’s sorta ruining her buzz. She grins teasingly. “Did you really leave the keys inside?”

Eric scoffs, and Bender kicks at rock in Eric’s direction when he walks away.

-

Donna doesn’t see Bender for the rest of the day. She supposes getting yelled at annoyed him, and figures he won’t be back for the rest of the week - _until_ she sees him standing flat against the glass pane of her window, balancing precariously on the ledge.

He’s knocking, skin almost glowing against the dark sky, and Donna’s at the window before she can think, listening to the clicks and clacks as the glass pane slides up and out of place.

Bender climbs in as she steps back, Donna plucking containers of colorful pens and stacks of notebooks out of the way as Bender’s leg sweeps across the desk. It’s just like old times, and she’s still just as good at predicting his fuck-up’s, picks up a box of paper clips before it has a chance to collide with Bender’s shoe. Bender gives her a crooked smile once he’s inside, hair tousled, and lands on her carpet with a thump. 

He swipes a pen from the container she’s holding, and pockets it. “You still writing?”

“Everyday.” Donna replies, and then, because she knows he’ll never ask, “Wanna read some?”

Carefully, Bender nods.

So Donna flops on her bed and Bender joins her, their shoulders touching; he snags her pillow and flips it to the side to use as his own while Donna spreads her journal out in front of them, balanced so they can both read.

It’s not her newest journal, this is one she filled up a year prior, before she switched to navy ink. Bender smirks at all the wrong parts and points out flaws but he’s smiling - small and secretive, and at the penultimate page he concludes it’s no Vonnegut but good. He taps the page with his stolen pen and closes it with one hand.

Donna turns to him. “I wasn’t aware you knew who Vonnegut was.”

Bender smirks at her. “I know this will surprise you, Donna, but I _can_ read.” At her stare, he admits, “Fuckin’ English teacher talks a _lot_ about him.”

He flips over so he’s lying on his spine, head propped up beneath his arms. He stares at the ceiling. Donna stares at him.

“Where were you?” She doesn’t need to clarify for him to know what she’s referring to - his sudden disappearance these past months.

“I told you. Ice cream.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He spins the pencil around in his hand. “Why do you care, anyway?”

“You left.” Donna mutters.

“I’m right here.” Bender retorts.

They lie in silence for a bit. Bender continues to stare resolutely at the ceiling, admits, “Old man. Givin’ me a hard time. I had to get out.”

Donna nods against the pillow; Bender crosses and uncrosses his legs.

She falls asleep with her head pressed against his chest, and he’s gone in the morning. Just like old times.

**Author's Note:**

> Come blabber to me on [ tumblr](https://noellesthings.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
